Three out of ten

They had started with ten.

Ten boys, all similar in age and origin. Most of them had come from impoverished households, in small rural townships, bastards born to unwed mothers or an unwanted and unexpected addition to a family whom already had more mouths than they were able to feed. Some of them had been willingly handed over, while others had been plucked from their homes, used as currency to square up life debts and settle scores which had been thought of as long forgotten. At least one had been abandoned on the path, no more aware of his own parentage than anyone else was. Rumors spoke of royal affairs and secret claimants to a throne that rested within a keep situated hundreds of miles away.

After the first set of trials, ten had become five.

None of the older boys ever spoke of their own experiences. Bound by a vow of secrecy or threatened into silence. Disobedience and insolence were not well tolerated within the order and was usually met with cruel punishment. Harsh beatings, a week of nothing but bread and water to replenish the body after a long day of gruelling training exercises, or a night spent out in the mountains, cold and alone with nothing but your own wits and knowledge to help you survive until morning.

Nobody had warned the youngsters about days spent in fever driven delirium. The way your brain felt like it was melting within the confines of your skull, while the stone walls breathed in and out as though they were alive and the shivers grew so violent it was enough to chip teeth and pull muscles. Not a word was spoken of seeing the contents of your stomach brought up time and time again and the painful dry heaves that followed once there was nothing left to vomit. How your chest burned with every breath you took, yet despite the pain you struggled to fill them more and more, utterly convinced that it would be the last time you felt them fill with air. There was nothing in the books about the muscle cramps, the very sinew and tissue that lay beneath your clammy skin being wrung like a wet towel. Every extremity twisted and contorted in ways you never thought possible.

It was in those last moments, he had begged for death to come and take him. Tears stinging eyes that blurred in and out of focus against his will, his childish, weak whispers loud enough to rattle his already throbbing head. Could they hear his pleas as loud as he could? Was he destined to die in shame, alone and afraid? Would they think of him as a coward? Or would they sweep him under the metaphorical rug, never giving him a second thought like all of those before him who had not been strong enough to survive? Was he the only one crying and pleading like a toddler? Had his friends already died? The boys he had trained and studied with. Shared a table with at meal times. Exchanged hopes and dreams with in the rare quiet moments at the end of the day, before the candles were snuffed and exhaustion took them to wherever they went when they slept...

It was them he thought of first as he arose from a heavy, dreamless sleep, shooting up in bed as violently as the whole process had been, the room spinning while his eyes fought to focus. He had to get out of there. He had to escape. He needed to know what had become of the others.

The leather bindings that had once seemed as strong as steel were easy to break out of; the seams splitting apart after a few good pulls. The cold stone against his bare feet had never felt so good, a welcome contrast to the fever that still resided inside of him, evident by the damp dark hair plastered against his clammy forehead. His legs almost gave out on him as he heaved himself to his feet. He had to catch the edge of the bed to keep himself from crumpling into a pile on the floor. Each step was shaky. Like an infant just learning how to walk. The sound of bare skin slapping against the floor, penetrating his ears hard enough to make him wince.

The door hadnt been locked. Perhaps they had left him for dead? A very large part of him still wished that he was. A feeling that only grew in intensity as he flung open the door, the old wood reeling back against its hinges with much more force than he had intended to use. The light of the torches that lined the outside corridors assaulted him as though someone had thrown salt in his eyes, palms instantly coming up to jam themselves into his eye sockets, rubbing and pressing until stars appeared amongst the blackness.

Ten years he had spent as a ward of Kaer Morhen and not once could he recall it ever being so loud. Hands moved swiftly from blurry, blotched eyes to cover throbbing ears as a ballroom full of people began speaking all at once, though none of them seemed to be having the same conversation.

A griffin, spotted in the foothills...

Too weak to fulfill his destiny...

Next seasons harvest is sure to be scant...

Somehow, as though entirely by instinct, his overloaded senses were able to pick up a familair voice in a swirling sea of what seemed like hundreds. Like magic, he was able to drown out all the others, honing in on the one that he knew belonged to his mentor.

"He will not survive another round. The effects are unknown. It would be a waste of potential"...

Focusing all his efforts towards following the voice, with a newfound sense of determination rising from deep within him, he took another few steps forward, heading eastward down the torchlit corridor.

Vesemir was talking to someone, but the second voice he could not recognize.

"You are soft for this one. I never once thought I would ever see the day"...

When the dark haired boy, with the formally stark blue eyes appeared in the open doorway, arms outstretched on either side of him, pale fingers curled around the wooden molding of the threshold so to hold himself in place, both sets of eyes belonging to the elder Witchers shifted quickly to meet him. The child battled to focus his own, teeth bared and concentration sharp. The body in the bed was still alive, its chest rising and falling unnervingly slow, but steady.

"Geralt", he spoke, his voice raspy and barely audible, before he succumbed to the strain of it all and finally collapsed in a sweaty pile on the floor.

Ten had become five.

Then five had become three.

And when it was all over and the younger boys asked him what it was like, Eskel would not answer them. Not bound by a vow of secrecy or afraid of what would happen to him if he were to tell the truth of the whole thing, but because he was unwilling to look them in the eyes they were born with and tell them what their fate truly entailed.